Here is a list of blogging tips, to increase your readership and exposure. Some I need to apply more myself, but here they are:

• When writting a post for a blog, use  bullet points, headers and try to keep paragraphs short. These things attract readers to actually read the post. Read Melissa’s blog Writing Forward for writing tips, which are very useful.
• Try to always include an image; imagine a newspaper without images. Quite boring. If you can’t find something relevant look for usable images on Flickr.
• Encourage your readers to signup for your RSS feed. Perhaps write a post on how to use an RSS reader (such as Google Reader) and its benefits. Use Feedburner to track your RSS readers and perhaps monetize on your feed in the future.
• Start a contest to give something away, such as something free like an Ebook or perhaps an Ipod Nano. Get people to Tweet about your contest as an entry or sign up for the RSS feed. Reward your commenters too with an entry to the contest. John Chow has great tips for getting lots of subscribe and readers in a short amount of time.
• Thank your commenters, either personally or automatically with a WordPress plugin. Also try commenting on their blogs and if you like what they write subscribe to their RSS feed and ask them to join yours.
• Blog as much as you can without affecting quality. Try for daily postings, but if you can’t, at least a 3 or 4 per week, but remember not to just write for the sake of writing. If you have nothing to blog about, don’t force yourself and comprimise your blogs quality. If you feel real inspired one day and you are able to crank out a few posting, schedule them to be published in the future for the days or just keep of backlog of post for days when you can’t find inpiration (or perhaps time to blog).
• Network: Try to get interviews with recognized bloggers. Perhaps he/she would be happy to give you a quick email interview, in exchange for traffic for their blog. Get a guest blogger to write for your blog and write for someone else’s, both of you will benefit with the cross-promotion

[Photo credit]

As you can see if you are an old blog visitor, I’ve changed the appearance of things around here. This time, I didn’t create my own theme, I went the classic “buy a premium theme” route, and I’m quite happy with the results. My past experience with my creating my last two themes was very helpful; I learned a lot about the inner workings of WordPress, even though I didn’t create the theme completely from scratch, I went the Sandbox route (who starts any coding project now a days with out some sort of recycled code, anyway?).

I decided I didn’t want to redesign a code myself and rather spend that time writing instead of designing. So I searched the web a while, exploring the premium WordPress websites out there until I found exactly what I needed; a subscription site with a all-you-can-download model with a very good price point. Elegant Themes, $20 for a year, where I have access to their growing library of themes, all of which are professionally designed and supported. I will also have access to all their new themes, for as long as I’m a paying subscriber. 

I modified the included logo of the theme I decide to use using the included PSD file, which is extremely helpful. Then I read the readme file included with the download and installed the theme. Everything went smooth and without a hitch, but if something were to arise, their support and forums are awesome (I had to seek help using another theme for an upcoming project). 

If you are on the market for a new theme, and a free theme or making a theme yourself aren’t really an option, check them out, you can see all their themes as demos and their support for installation is great.  Since I can use as many themes as I like, I’ve started a new secret project, something I’m trying to keep under wraps until its ready to launch. Oops.

#Disclaimer#: I discovered they have an affiliate program so I became a member and if you end up buying, I’ll get a commission, nothing big, but worth monetizing if possible. I wouldn’t be writing about them if I wouldn’t think their product is awesome, and hey, I’m a paying customer myself. I’ve also added a 125×125 link on my sidebar. 

I did it. I bought a nice domain name (did I?), I set up WordPress and a new theme and I’ve setup a new blog for my girlfriend. She’s a behavior therapist that works with autistic children and I thought that the premise of a blog from the perspective of a therapist would be interesting. There is quite an extensive network of autism-related blogs out there, but most are from the perspective of the parents of autistic children. Check out the site at http://autismchronicles.com. After setting up the new blog, I thought that the documenting the whole process of starting a new blog would be interesting, so here goes.

1. Found a subject matter. I think this is the most important step for anyone planning on starting out a new blog. I’ve seen many blogs out there without a defined subject matter, which I guess isn’t wrong, but I believe that successful blogs have defined subjects matter, i.e. JohnChow.com, making money online, Gizmodo: gadgets and technology. In my case the subject matter for this new blog is quite clear, as I said, my girlfriend will blog about her daily experiences with autistic children and autism in general.

2. Got a domain name. I aimed for something memorable, short and relevant. Finding a good domain out there is not an easy task, so need be be creative. Also, try to stick to .com’s and .net’s.

4. Installed WordPress. I like WordPress and they have a huge momentum behind them. The WP community is very active and very helpful. For me, installing WP is very easy, thanks to Dreamhost’s one-click-installs, but most hosting providers out there offer automated ways of installing WP. If your host doesn’t offer this, I would suggest heading over to WP’s official docs.

5. Got a theme. In this case I used Adii’s recently launched unGrid theme. I did a bit of customization by means of creating my own logo. Also, in the beginning don’t focus too much on the design of your blog (there are plenty of very attractive free themes out there), but focus mainly on your content. Its your content that will keep bringing people back to your blog, not the design. Either chose one of many freely available themes, design your own or hire someone to design it for you. If you are low budget I would stick to a free theme, which can be easily customized. More on WP can be found here.

6. Forgot about monetization (at least at the beginning). Sure, one motivation for starting a blog is probably the making-money factor, but in order to make money you need traffic so again, focus on your content. For Autism Chronicles, I have not placed any ads and I’m not planning on doing that anytime soon.

7. Started blogging. My girlfriend will be the primary author on this blog, since she’s the one with the experience, but I will contribute by helping her socializing online (linking and participating on other blogs) and by posting autism-related articles in the news.

We looked at Hostgator, but of course, they’re known for suspending accounts for excessive CPU usage out of the blue. We looked at MediaTemple, but they don’t provide the bandwidth we need. And finally we stumbled upon Site5. $18 a month gives you 10 TB of bandwidth and 1 TB of storage. THAT IS TWICE WHAT WE’VE GOT WITH DREAMHOST!!!! Surely there had to be a catch, but I couldn’t find their Terms of Service, so I headed over the their sign-up page. I started filling out all the usual stuff, and as I was about the hit the "SUBMIT ORDER" button, when I decided to check out their TOS (which is located here). This is what I found.

Note: Pornography and sex-related merchandising are prohibited on any Site5 Internet Solutions, Inc. server. This includes sites that may infer sexual content, or link to adult content elsewhere. This is also true for sites that promote any illegal activity or content that may be damaging to Site5 Internet Solutions, Inc. servers or any other server on the internet. Links to such materials are also prohibited.

OK, fine, no porn and illegal shenanigans, but disallowing "sites that may infer sexual content, or link to adult content elsewhere" seems a bit extreme. That means that I can’t blog about Jenna Jameson the porn star. That means that if someone says that they are going to hump a goat on a comment on my blog, I’ll get suspended with Site5? Isn’t that a bit extreme?

So, we’re keeping Dreamhost. They’re friendly and generous. We just need to expand Dumbfiles as much as possible so that we can move to our own co-located server. As a matter of fact…you can help! Go sign up for an account….its free!

Update #1. [This guy] is having all sorts of issues with Dreamhost. I’m afraid that now that they’re 10, their network is falling apart…c’mon…a core router is down and there is no redundancy in place to remedy that?

Update #2. Anyone know of a reliable web host that provides at least 1 TB and disk space and 2 or 3 TB of bandwidth? I’ll be happy to use a referral code…

There are multiple ways of witting posts with WordPress. Some like the plain text-mode, some like the built-in TinyMCE editor, others install plugins (such as WYSIWYG for WordPress or Xinha), and some even use MS Word 2007's blogging features. Lets examine the first method:

Plain-text:

This method is just like using a text editor, except that it can insert some snippets of code for you, such as the tags for inserting images, lists, bold text, etc. I imagine old-school coders use this method the most. Or perhaps lazy bloggers, because using the other methods is a lot faster and it gives you a preview of your article, including images, as you write.

Built-in Editor 

WP 2.0 now has a slimmed down version of the TinyMCE editor. It handles image very effectively; it allows you to position them and resize them. It also has a few more paragraph and font modifiers.

Advanced Editor

JD from The Mudbomb Blog created the WYSIWYG Plugin for WP, now in version 5 [more info here] . There are more options, such as Xinha, which I haven't tried, and I'm sure there are many others, let me know in the comments.

them and select whether you want a thumbnail, the full size image (which can be resized) or a link to the image. It also allows you to perform various paragraph edit. Directly from the author:

•More image control! You can choose thumbnail size, adjust the compression quality setting, or choose not to create a thumbnail at all(useful for small images) all on the fly. Add images as thumbnails, full-size images, or thumbnails with a link to the full size, AND MORE!

•Extended emoticon support- just click on a smilie to add it to your post.

•Quick dictionary.com dictionary, thesaurus, and encyclopedia lookups via a built-in plugin.

•A few extra text effects- underline, text color, highlighting, etc.

•No need to alter any of WordPress' core files, so the plugin is easy to install and should be pretty much "upgrade-proof". All settings are configured via the WordPress admin interface. No config files to edit! :)

Using Word 2007

After fiddling around with Word 2007, I came across one of its very useful features, especially for bloggers; the ability to post WP articles directly from Word. You have to configure a couple of settings and make sure you are running at least WP 2.0. Word does a good job and posting is almost instantly. I'll show you how to configure Word in 4 easy steps:

Step 1: Click on the Office button on the top left of your screen in Word. Go to publish, then Blog.

Step 2: Click Register Now

Step 3: Select WordPress from the drop-down menu.

Step 4. Enter the details of your blog, such as address, your username and password.

Click OK on the next two screens and you're all set. You can now publish your articles directly from MS Word 2007, just hit "Publish" on the top left button.

So there you have it. Four methods for writing post for WordPress, including one using everyone's favorite Word Processor [add sarcastic tone, please].